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CIVIL GOVERNMENT 

AN ORDINANCE OF GOD. 



A. SERMOlSr, 

Delivered in tbe 1st Cwgregational Cliuieh, Coldiester, Cong., 

By L. CURTIS. 



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€\mi tnacrnmcnt an nrMnanre of M: 



-A. SERMON", 



DELIVERED IN THE 



1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, COLCHESTER, 

APRIL 21sT, 18G1, 

BY LWURTIS. 



HARTFORD : 

O. F. JACKSON", PniNTER. 
1861. 



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Colchester, April 22, 1861. 
To our Pastor, Rev. L. Curtis : 

Dbas Sib : — Cordially approving the sentiments contained in your Discourse 
of Sunday morning, April 21st., and desiring its spirit to be more widely dissemi- 
nated, we hereby request a copy for publication. 

Yours, very truly, 

Ebenbzer Carpenter, 
Horace Smith, 
M. Storrs, 

R. B. GWYLLIM, 

S. A. Stebbins, 

J. T. ASHTON, 

and forty others. 



Colchester, April 24, 1861. 
Messrs, Ebenezer Carpenter, Horace Smith, M. Storrs, R. B. Gwyllim, S. A. 
Stebbins, J. T. Ashton, &c. :— 

Gentlemen :— The Discourse which you request for publication was very hastily 
prepared, and it has no especial merit but that of plain truth plainly spoken. Our 
present perils lend to it all the interest it can have. But if you think it may con- 
tribute to form more just views of our Civil Government, or to inspire a true 
Christian patriotism for its defense and maintainance, it is at your disposal. 

Yours, respectfully, L. Curtis. 



SERMON". 



Rom. xiii. 4. — " For he is the minister of God to thee for good : hut 
if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not the sword 
in vain : for he is the minister of God^ a revenger to execute wrath 
upon him that doeth evil."" 

There are three institutions which are the foundation 
of human society; the Family, the State and the 
Church. They all exist by divine appointment. They 
are all essential to the existence of any society in 
which life is a blessing. From the Family spring the 
elements of life and power in the State. The State is 
the shelter of the Family ; while the Church would el- 
evate and vitalize both, with the love of God and 
man, and faith in eternal realities. The text speaks 
of Civil Government, or of the Chief Magistrate, who 
stands as its representative. "He is the minister of 
of God to thee for goody It is an institution de- 
signed for the benefit of those who live under it, — to 
secure their rights amd guard their interests ; to throw 
its protection over every family and over all the inter- 
ests of society. 

And not only is Civil Government designed for the 
good of all: — it is the appointment of God to secure it. 



The magistrate is His minister, God's own agent to 
promote it. The ruling power does not act merely in 
the name, and for the people. He is also the agent of 
God, officiating by divine appointment. Hence, Civil 
Government is not merely man's institution ; — it is an 
Grdinance of God. 

The other thought of the text is : God gives his own 
sanction to the punishment of evil-doers. " If thou 
doest that which is evil, be afraid ; for he beareth not 
the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a re- 
venger to execute wrath upon him that doetn evil. — " 
By " him that doeth evil" is here meant one that 
breaks the laws, or resists the authority of Civil Gov- 
ernment. And by " revenger to execute wrath," is 
meant, the officer of justice, the agent both of man 
and of God to inflict righteous punishment upon the 
transgressor. And he must not bear the sword in vain 
— that symbol of authority and of justice must not be 
an empty name. It must come down upon the trans- 
gressor. 

The inference from these facts is, that obedience to 
the magistrate is both a necessity and a duty. ^' Where- 
fore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but 
also for conscience sake," ye must ohey^ for the magis- 
trate may rightfully compel obedience by the sword ; 
and God also commands it. 

Paul^ in this chapter, was evidently addressing some 
professing to be Christians, who lived under the Roman 
Government, and yet refused to obey its authority. 
They wanted to throw off that Government and deny 
its claims. They refused to pay tribute or revenue into 



its treasury. All this resistance to civil authority Paul 
condemned. It was wrong. It deserved the rebuke 
he gave it. He would not encourage fanaticism or 
rebellion, even among those who lived under Nero. 
He was a law-and-order man. He would, as a good 
citizen, obey and honor the government of the empire, 
except when it commanded Mm to do what God liad for- 
hidden^ or forhid Jiim to do what God had com- 
manded. And this he would enjoin upon all Christians, 
and upon all men, because the highest authority, the 
Most High, commands obedience to the authority of 
the State. 

Here is a lesson for our times. In the providence 
of God, we are brought face to face with realities 
which impress us with the grave importance of these 
truths ; — the sacredness that belongs to Civil Govern- 
ment ; and the divine sanction it has to vindicate its 
claims to loyal obedience. 

1st. — There is a sacredness which belongs to Civil 
Government. 

It is too common to regard Government as a mere 
matter of convenience, the creature of human will, and 
of circumstances. It is indeed left to men to deter- 
mine the form of government according to circum- 
stances ; to elect their rulers or make them hereditaty ; 
to make laws and unmake them ; and to put into legis- 
lative enactments a thousand things which are tem- 
porary and local. But because there is this discretion 
concerning forms and modes, many seem to infer that 
Government itself is a mere matter of discretion and 



prudence, wltli nothing sacred or inviolable belonging 
to it. It is a false and fatal inMence. Because there 
have been different forms of trial, and different Ways of 
awardingjustice between man and man, — -sometimes by 
arbitration, sometimes by judges on the bench ; some- 
times with a jury and sometimes without; shall we infer 
that justice itself is a matter of discretion and conve-' 
nience ; that it is no more sacred than the lorms in 
which it is administered ? 

By no means. Under whatever form or mode of ad- 
ministration, Justice is one. It must be the aim and 
end of all judicial proceedings. It is fundamental. It 
is a principle of the Divine Government. It is an 
attribute of God's eternal nature. No man, nobody 
of men may trifie with it. 

So Civil Government, whatever its form. Imperial, 
Monarchial, Republican — has ends to reach which are 
sacred as Justice ; which are essential to the very exis- 
tence of society. And to secure these ends. Civil 
Government is ordained af God, There is no discre- 
tionary power in this matter. These ends are high and 
sacred ; above all forms and policy ; above all party 
issues or personal interests. And Civil Government is 
indispensable to secure them. While it aims to secure 
them, while it is capable of securing them, in the le- 
gitimate use of its power and authority^ every citizen 
should swear allegiance to it, and stand up, unflinching, 
for its maintenance. What desecration to regard such 
an ordinance of God, as a mere toy to play with ; as a 
chess-board for political games ; or as a machinery for 
personal ends or party purposes ! It is a mo-nstrous 



perversion of one of the most sacred trusts ever com- 
mitted to man. And the man who lifts his hand against 
it, makes war upon Jehovah, and upon Humanity ! 

And remember, too, the many and precious interests 
it is set to foster and to guard. What an educator it 
is of the conscience. Its body of laws, based upon 
natural justice, embodying the wisdom of ages, and 
enforced with solemn forms and sanctions, gives clear- 
er thoughts and deeper sentiments of justice, and a 
keener sense of obligation. It is a healthy restraint 
upon the evil in our lawless nature. It braces up 
every noble and patriotic sentiment. It puts the hand 
of power upon the evil-doer, compelling him to res- 
pect the rights of other men. It throws its broad 
shield over each individual of the State. It joins mil- 
lions of hands, it points millions of bayonets, if need 
be ; it holds the entire power of the State pledged to 
protect the rights and to redress the injuries of the 
weakest and the humblest citizen. Every family rests 
under its shelter. Every individual pursues his cal- 
ling, secure of the reward of his own labor. All the 
arts of peace flourish under its guardianship at home, 
while abroad, our Commerce floats secure under its 
flag, as if the nation's right arm was stretched out over 
all the oceans to thQ farthest sea. 

Thus our National Government, as strong and vigor- 
ous, as just and insisting upon justice, has not only en- 
couraged and protected every interest at home, but has 
given to the American citizen his passport among all 
civilized nations, and like the Roman citizen of old, he 
has felt secure from encroachment and insult by the 



8 

simple declaration : ^^ I am a citizen of the United 
States." 

And how many are the recollections and associations 
of a national character, that have become historic, that 
have been gathering in the course of our history from 
the landing on Plymouth Rock, and the mustering of 
our armies around Washington, and the firm establish- 
ment of our free government, down to the present 
year. There is a wealth of historic memories even for 
our young nation which is the heritage of every patriot 
in the land. And it ought to bind us together as one 
family by the most tender and sacred ties ; for all over 
our country we can say and feel : '^ What noble men 
our fathers were ; how blessed the heritage they left 
us !" It is not yet a century since we started as an in- 
dependent nation. It is not two centuries and a half 
since the May-flower came. But from then till now, 
with all our trials, how richly has the God of our 
fathers blessed us. Since the Revolution, with the 
exception of a brief period, the war of 1812, we have 
had unparallelled prosperity. The blessings of good 
government have abounded, and they have come so 
easily, so quietly that we have not realized any pres- 
sure from the strong, paternal arm that has been 
around us for protection. Our own Government, 
founded upon a Constitution which the world has hon- 
ored, and by sacrifices which the world has admired, 
we believe to be an ordinance of God. It may 
have human imperfections, but it has the divine sanc- 
tion. The God of nations raised up the men who 
founded it, and who gave all that was dear to them 



9 

for its defense. They looked to Him when they 
put their hands to this work. He imbued them v/ith 
his own wisdom, He upheld them with his right arm. 
And who can doubt, that now, we ought to take this 
heritage to our hearts as the gift of God and of our 
fathers, and as the depository of all onr hopes and in- 
terests as a nation ; that we ought to defend and hold 
it sacred almost as the ''Ark of the Covenant,'' and 
putting forth no rash hand to modify or change it, to 
transmit it inviolate to those who shall come after us? 

2nd. — The other great truth taught in the text is 
this : Civil Government has divine sanction to enforce 
ohedience to its laws, 

I need not add one word to show that this is the 
plain meaning of this passage. I know there are cases 
where resistance and revolution are to be justified. 
But they are very rare. The Government must be per- 
verted to unlawful ends. It must be oppressive. It 
must fail to answer its object, and it must be incapable 
of reform or restoration by peaceful and constitutional 
modes, before this dangerous and violent remedy is to 
be applied. But in the case of our Government, none 
of these things are true. Not a citizen is oppressed. 
Not a provision of our great Charter has been violated. 
Whatever wrongs individuals may have committed 
against the rights of any, our Government \^ not impli- 
cated, and it stands ready to-day, as it ever has, to se- 
cure every guaranty of the Constitution. It has not been 
perverted to unlawful ends. It has no desire to en- 
croach upon the rights of any state, or of any citizen of 



10 

our Confederacy. The Constitution, in its letter and 
its spirit, is to-day what our fathers made it. It has 
proved a blessing to all our people, and if faithfully ob* 
served, it is ample for the protection of all the interests 
it was made to guard. And, certainly, if Paul, by 
divine authority, declared it the duty of men to 
be subject to the despotic government of Nero, it is 
the duty of American citizens to obey the best gov- 
ernment on earth. If the Roman Government was ^/^eii 
authorized to enforce its authority against law-breakers 
and canspirators, our own Government has the right to 
do it noio. If those who resisted the powers that then 
were, resisted the ordinance of God, the same must be 
true of those who now resist the supreme authority of 
this nation. It those, deserved righteous punishment, 
these ought not to escape. The supreme authority of 
this nation must not be trampled with impunity.— 
It is a blow at all our rights and interests and at every 
safeguard for them. A good government must be 
strong, vigorous, stable One that is weak, shifting, 
revolutionary, like that of Mexico, is ruinous to any 
people. Every upstart chieftain, every disaffected or 
ambitious man, has power to embroil and desolate a 
nation. You know not who will usurp it to-morrow, 
or what exactions it will make, or what vengeance it 
will inflict. Property, life, every interest is insecure, 
unless Civil Government be planted as upon a rock, 
and be maintained against all opposition, in fact, as 
well as in theory, " a terror to evil doers." There 
must be subjection to it. It must lay its hand upon 
the transgressor with an energy that none shall resist. 



11 

It must maintain its authority, to have the right to live. 
And when its authority is defiantly and successfully 
trampled, it is dead. It ceases to fulfil its end. The 
whole fabric crumbles to the earth and we are shel- 
terless. Every storm of popular violence may beat 
upon us. Every wave of passion may sweep over us, 
till pelted and drifted hither and thither, defenceless 
and desolate, we are tired of life. 

There has long been a tenuency in our country to 
push the idea of individual sovereignty and indepen- 
dence almost to the verge of lawlessness. We will not 
here inquire the cause. It is a fact too evident, and 
likely to prove fatal, unless speedily we correct this 
tendency. It is the extreme opposite to that which ex- 
isted in the Spartan and in other ancient governments. 
Then, the individual was but a machine, an instrument 
of the state ; existing only for the state. All his rights 
and interests were swallowed up by the state. But here 
the state is swallowed up by the individual. The will 
of the individual is grown imperious, dictatorial, and 
defiant toward the supreme authority of the state. He 
claims an independence which is irresponsible and law- 
less. The most sacred of political compacts are reck- 
lessly broken. A senator, representing a certain state, 
upon the floor of the U. S. Senate, sworn to obey and 
maintain the constitution of his country^ holding his 
place on that floor only by virtue of that constitution, 
boldly avows that he owes ''no allegiance to the 
Government of the United States." This fatal heresy, 
started and propogated on the soil of a southern 
state, by a disappointed, ambitious man, has for more 



12 

than a generation, been taldng deeper root, and 
spreading wider and growing higher, till, like a great 
poisonous tree, it overshadows the land. Its breath 
corrupts the political atmosphere. It dissolves all 
political integrity and eats away all the foundations of 
national authority and power. If it triumphs we fall 
into the bottomless pit of anarchy. It is inevitable. 
The principle is fatal to all government. It ought to 
have been met and crushed long ago. But the favor- 
able moment has passed. And now after asserting it- 
self defiantly for years at the Capitol of our nation ; af- 
ter secret plottings and deep-laid conspiracies, it has 
grown at length to a fearful embodiment in " The Con- 
federate States." It stands forth in open day, arrogant, 
cruel and defiant ; determined to measure its strength 
with our Government, to march upon our Capitol, and 
to usurp the government it has sworn to obey and de- 
fend. No ! It aims with vandal spirit to destroy it, and 
to erect upon the ruins another government, framed by 
some conventionists ; with a constitution never sub- 
mitted to the people for their assent ; forced upon them 
by a blind madness and haste, and by the propogation 
of every false and artful rumor that can misrepresent the 
National Government, and inflame every evil passion 
against it. The whole scheme, though half-suspected 
by m.any, has taken us by surprise. We are not pre- 
pared for it. We are appalled by its magnitude, and by 
the bold desperation with which it clutches at the whole 
power, at tha very Capitol and archives of the nation, 
and at all our blood-bought liberties. 

We have just seen that, because in mere self defense, 



13 

our Government would peaceably provision its own 
starving soldiers, those brave, immortal men of Sump- 
ter, its own fortress, they battered and burnt them out, 
took possession of the fortress and struch doiun the flag of 
our countrij! Yes, struck down in disgrace that glo- 
rious symbol of the nation's authority and power ; the 
representative symbol of all our rights and liberties ; the 
symbol of national justice and law, and freedom and 
glory : that flag which waved over Washington and 
the brave armies that rallied around him in defence of 
our common country ; which our veteran soldiers, who 
fought under it, cannot look upon without tears ; which 
has waved over all the seas, loved by the American 
sailor and traveler as their sure protection and the 
pride of their hearts, saluted and honored the world 
over ! 

And in place of it, they have raised another flag, the 
symbol of another government, and for the first time in 
the history of the World, now in this nineteenth cen- 
tury, they have laid for its chief "cornerstone," not 
Justice and Liberty, but Slavery — that institution 
which the most despotic nations are sweeping from 
their limits as a curse, and which is condemned by the 
Christian sentiment of the civilized world! And the 
flag of that Confederacy, red with the blood of Liberty, 
is to-day flouting its folds of treason towards Washing- 
ton. The conspirators are already coming up near the 
grave of Mount Vernon, not as reverent pilgrims, but 
to desecrate and destroy the work to which Washing- 
ton gave his life. They are coming to thunder at the 
gates of the Capitol, demanding the keys of govern- 



14 

ment, the archives of the nation, and the submission of 
the people to the will of traitors ! What began in se- 
cession and anarchy, is already ripened into despotism. 
It was enough that the conspirators should have put 
lawless hands on our nation's defences and property. 
It was more than enough that they should send commis- 
sioners to our outraged Government, demanding its 
sanction of the treaon, and a distribution of the stolen 
property, equitahli/, and then to take the piratical Con- 
federacy by the hand, welcoming it to the dignity of 
national sovereignty and to the sisterhood of civilized 
nations. But now^ when they press hard upon Wash- 
ington, to overthrow the entire government, to drive 
the ploughshare over all that we venerate in the 
achievements of our fathers, and to put the heel of des- 
potism upon a Republican people, for one I would 
rather die than submit! It cannot be! In the name 
of justice and law ; by all the memories of our fathers ; 
in the name of the God of Battles, we'll never suffer it ! 
It may cost us sacrifices. What is money, what is life 
in such a cause ? We'll never crown this master-plot of 
treachery and crime against humanity, unless Omnipo- 
tence bids us do it. If ever crime merited retribution, 
it is this. The supreme authority of this nation, 
clothed with justice, ought to take to itself all the 
energies of a united people and with swift retribution 
crush this conspiracy to the earth ! There may be de- 
feats and humiliations before us, but we will not des- 
pair. Our nation's defeat at Port Sumpter shall prove 
the nation's victory and salvation. We will not lose 
our trust in God. After He shall have tried us and 



15 

taught us the value of our heritage by sacrifices for it, 
and brought us to feel our dependence upon Him, He 
will vindicate his own cause. He will not suffer the 
World to look upon the greatest iniquity of the ages 
crowned with success, nor compel the friends of religion 
and humanity in all time to come, to wonder and stum- 
ble at such a mystery of Providence, and drop their 
tears over the darkest page of history ! 



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